Levick - Tyranny of victimhood: Why the Guardian gives a free ride to reactionary Palestinian movement

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
16 November '11

Yesterday, some anti-Israel agitators pretended to be “civil rights” activists by riding on buses Israeli citizens in the territories use to travel to Jerusalem.

These buses do not allow non-citizens (without proper permits) to enter communities in Judea and Samaria in order to stop potential Palestinian terror attacks.

No, it’s not surprising that the the decidedly reactionary Palestinian movement would cynically exploit the genuinely liberal US Civil Rights Movement – which, in the early 1960s, attempted to end the practice, in the American south, of requiring that African Americans ride on the back of municipal buses.

And, no it’s not surprising that the Guardian would give the stunt a positive spin, “Palestinian protest ‘racist’ bus policy“, Phoebe Greenwood, Nov. 15.

However, the mere ubiquity of such narratives (by both the MSM and the Guardian), which represent the Palestinian cause as anything resembling a truly progressive, anti-racist movement, doesn’t render them any less reprehensible.

As we’ve noted previously, per Freedom House, Palestinian political culture is undemocratic and lacks basic checks and balances; it fails to respect the rights of religious minorities, women, and the LGBT community; and the rights of citizens to peacefully dissent and criticize the government are not respected.

Further, Palestinian culture is imbued with explicit antisemitism and incitement, and PLO officials have even stated that they will not allow Jews to live in a future Palestinian state.

Anti-Israel activists zealously advocating for the Palestinian cause seem, necessarily, to be required to strenuously repress the cognitive dissonance of understanding that such activism is often at complete odds with the progressive values they otherwise cherish.

How then to explain how such an illiberal movement has become a popular cause within liberal circles in the West?

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